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St. Mary of Magdala: Ecclesiological Provocations

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St. Mary of Magdala: Ecclesiological Provocations ● CTSA PROCEEDINGS 66 (2011): 67-90 ● ST. MARY OF MAGDALA: ECCLESIOLOGICAL PROVOCATIONS In preparing for this address, I reviewed CTSA presidential plenary addresses of the past twenty years and noticed that a frequently used genre has been that of “exhortation.” Often in a given year, a CTSA president has shared the fruits of his or her own theological scholarship, but in doing so used the opportunity to exhort the wider theological community to undertake work in a new area, or to recover some lost emphases that might help address contemporary concerns. While it is always tempting to address particular struggles or tensions we theologians are encountering at the present moment in the church, I want to suggest an area which I believe deserves more attention in our theological work, an area that may require a great deal of energy, commitment and long-term planning. Thus, the “exhorta- tive” aspect of my presentation is a plea for greater collaboration among theolo- gians and biblical scholars, particularly in terms of the scholarly work needed to promote the fl ourishing of the leadership of women and other subaltern groups in the church. What I can offer in the brief space allotted to me here is merely a sketch of some fruitful pathways such collaboration might take. I want to focus on one par- ticular area of current biblical research which I believe has important implications for ecclesiology, particularly an ecclesiology that is attentive to the living witness of the whole People of God and the role of theologians in serving the communion of the whole church. 1 In keeping with our convention theme of “All the Saints,” 1Ideally, this collaboration would involve a “communicative” approach to theology, such as that envisioned by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC II) in The Gift of Authority: Authority in the Church III (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1999): “The people of God as a whole is the bearer of the living Tradition. In changing situations producing fresh challenges to the Gospel, the discernment, actualiza- tion and communication of the Word of God is the responsibility of the whole people of God. The Holy Spirit works through all the members of the community, using the gifts he gives to each for the good of all. Theologians in particular serve the communion of the whole Church by exploring whether and how new insights should be integrated into the stream of Tradition. In each community there is a mutual exchange, a give and take, in which bishops, clergy and lay people receive from and give to others within the whole body.” (no. 28, 23). Cited by Richard Gaillardetz and Catherine Clifford, “Re-Imagining the Ecclesial/Prophetic Vocation of the Theologian, CTSA Proceedings 65 (2010), 56. For an introduction to “communicative theology” see Matthias Scharer and Bernd Jochen Hilberath, The Practice of Communicative Theology: An Introduction to a New Theological Culture (New York: Crossroad, 2008). 68 CTSA Proceedings 66 / 2011 the area of biblical research I would like to highlight is the recent deluge of schol- arship on St. Mary of Magdala—or, as I will refer to her here, Mary Magdalene. In what follows I would like to do three things: fi rst, I will give some background on how I became interested in Mary Magdalene and mention a few sub-texts which are operative in my presentation; second, I briefl y review the history of this fascinating character and her place in our ecclesial imagination. This will involve: (1) a review the data we have for the “historical Mary Magdalene”; (2) a review of some possible explanations for her “eclipse” from our ecclesial memory; and (3) a brief overview of some of the most recent scholarship which has focused on apocryphal and Gnostic material concerning Mary Magdalene. Finally, as my title suggests, I will conclude by sketching in broad strokes several “provocations” that a recovery of a “Magdalene tradition,” or “Magdalene function,” might present for further research and conversation in ecclesiology. I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MY INTEREST IN MARY MAGDALENE My interest in Mary Magdalene stems from graduate school days. In 1974, during my fi rst year in the doctoral program at St. Michael’s in Toronto I read the ground-breaking study of the U.S. Lutheran/Roman Catholic Dialogue, Peter in the New Testament published by Paulist Press. 2 This book emerged from the national dialogue between Lutherans and Roman Catholics which began in 1965 under the sponsorship of the Lutheran World Federation and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Begun in 1971, the book was intended to serve as a collaborative assessment which would prepare background for future ecumenical discussion of the role of the papacy in the universal church.3 Thus, it undertook a reassessment of the role of Peter in the New Testament, employing modern, critical biblical scholarship in order to ascertain what could be held in common by Catholics and Lutherans. In addition to the harmonious experience of mutual respect and openness in working together, perhaps the book’s greatest achievement was the tracing of a trajectory of the images of Peter in New Testament thought. The results, expressed in a sub- sequent dialogue publication, concluded that Lutherans and Catholics could agree that there was such a thing as a “Petrine function,” a particular form of ministry exercised by a person, offi ceholder, or local church with reference to the Church as a whole. 4 While this very laudable conclusion was instrumental in furthering ecumenical dialogue, what astonished me was this statement in the summary 2Raymond E. Brown, Karl P. Donfried, John Reumann, eds. Peter in the New Testament: A Collaborative Assessment by Protestant and Roman Catholic Scholars , (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House and New York: Paulist Press, 1973). 3Peter in the New Testament , 157. 4Paul C. Empie and T. Austin Murphy, eds., Papal Primacy and the Universal Church: Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue V (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1974), 11, n. 4. St. Mary of Magdala: Ecclesiological Provocations 69 conclusions to Peter in the New Testament : “Simon (Cephas) was accorded an appearance of the risen Jesus, probably the fi rst appearance. ” 5 The accompanying footnote read as follows: “In speaking of ‘fi rst appearance’ here and elsewhere, we are thinking only of the appearances to those who would become offi cial pro- claimers of the resurrection. We have not discussed the question of possible previ- ous appearances to women followers of Jesus.” 6 At that point, I said to myself, “What! What about Mary Magdalene? Wasn’t she the fi rst witness to the resurrection?” Thus, I began to wonder, “what difference would it make if we were to take Mary Magdalene’s witness as our starting point for theological refl ection on the charism of church leadership? What if we pro- posed and could agree upon such a thing as a ‘Magdalene function’? What would ecclesiology look like? What roles would be open to women in the church?” Admittedly, in the mid-1970s this was just something of a reverie of mine. Recall that the very next year the fi rst Woman’s Ordination Conference was held in Detroit and that the following year Paul VI issued Inter Insignores . Now, my purpose here is not to draw a trajectory from Mary Magdalene to women's ordina- tion. Of course, it would be anachronistic to declare that anyone in the New Testament was ordained. Rather, I want to suggest that biblical scholars and sys- tematic theologians together might “mine” the signifi cance of the Magdalene tra- dition (a tradition mentioned in all four Gospels and which has continued to exist in our ecclesial imagination for centuries), in a similar way that the Petrine texts were examined.7 Indeed, the Magdalene tradition has caused many to question whether, without this “apostle to the apostles,” 8 would there be any “Christianity” at all? So began my interest in Mary Magdalene. However, as I mentioned, two “subtexts” are operative in this consideration that are worth mentioning. One 5Peter in the New Testament , 161. Emphasis mine. 6Peter in the New Testament , 161, n. 340. Interestingly, Mary Catherine Hilkert notes that the 1976 Vatican declaration Inter Insignores “recognizes that women were the fi rst witnesses to the resurrection and the fi rst charged by Jesus to announce the paschal mes- sage. however the document distinguishes between women and ‘the apostles them- selves’ and states that only the latter are ‘the offi cial witnesses to the resurrection.’” See Naming Grace: Preaching and the Sacramental Imagination (New York: Continuum, 1997), 228, n. 7. 7I have in mind that this be done ecumenically. 8On the Patristic history of the title “apostle to the apostles” see Rosemarie Nurnberg, “ Apostolae Apostolorum : Die Frauen am Grab als erste Zeuginnen der Auferstehung in der Väterexegesis,” in Stimuli: Exegese und Ihre Hermeneutik in Antike und Christentum . Festschrift für Ernst Dassmann, eds. Geroge Schöllgen and Clemens Scholten, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergänzungsband 23 (1996), 228-42. Susan Haskins also traces this history, including the evolutionary journey of how Mary Magdalene went from being “the herald of the New Life” to “the redeemed whore.” See her Mary Magdalene: Myth and Metaphor (New York: Riverhead Books, 1993), 55-94. 70 CTSA Proceedings 66 / 2011 concerns the use of Scripture in systematic theology; the other pertains to the increasing specialization or “siloization” of our theological disciplines. 9 Use of Scripture in Theology My interest in the use of Scripture in systematic theology goes back almost thirty years to my graduate school days. As a student, I read David Kelsey’s work on The Uses of Scripture in Protestant Theology 10 and was rather startled that he did not consider any Catholic theologians’ use of scripture.
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